Category Archives: Arts

Janet Devlin vs. Janet Devlin

07 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by in Arts, Book Review, Entertainment, habits, Health, Lessons of Life, Life, Mental Health, Passionate People, Public Image, review, Women, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Album and Book REVIEW:  Confessional [album] and My Confessional [book] by Janet Devlin

The Case For and Against Janet Devlin

Your Honor, if it pleases the court, I would like to prove that Janet Devlin is highly intelligent and that she deliberately and systematically has used her intelligence to attack and humiliate Janet Devlin to cause both mental and physical harm.

Someone who produces both an album, titled Confessional and a corresponding book, titled My Confessional, as Ms. Devlin has done, is not of below-average nor even average intelligence. The feat itself proves my contention of higher than average intelligence, brilliant creativity, and an artistic skillset that exceeds the capabilities of most humans. 

In 2011, Ms. Devlin, at the age of 16, gained worldwide fame with a viral performance of Elton John’s, Your Song on Britain’s The X Factor television show. The official video of this performance has over 40 million views. Again, proof of her outstanding intelligence and abilities.

I contend that Ms. Devlin has used her intelligence against Janet. I contend that Ms. Devlin knows that Janet is so intelligent and talented that she perceives almost limitless possibilities and that Ms. Devlin has deceived Janet into believing that if she does not succeed at everything she might see as a possibility, then she has failed.

Further, Ms. Devlin has relentlessly humiliated and shamed Janet by degrading her, forcing her into addictive coping behaviors, and instilling a belief in failure.

The Evidence

Ms. Devlin has admitted to her acts against Janet. In her album, Ms. Devlin admits her sins against Janet. In her book, Janet details the acts that Ms. Devlin convinced her to do to herself.

Of the twelve songs in the album, almost all expose, in raw emotion, the savage cruelty beset upon a child and then a woman by Ms. Devlin. Her mind driven into depression by the belief of failure. In this album alone there is ample proof that Ms. Devlin has tortured Janet for most of her life.

In the twelve chapters of the book, Ms. Devlin writes of using self-doubt to cripple the efforts of Janet to the point that she took to seclusion and alcohol to cope with her feelings of inadequacy. One only has to listen to the music and read the words to know the truth.

The Defense For Janet Devlin

Your Honor, as I represent both the Plaintiff and the Defendant, I must admit that Ms. Devlin admits to her behavior. She has confessed in both word and song to her crimes. She, in fact, has used both the album and book to not only reveal the truth to all that will listen, but she has also gone so far as to bring awareness of how a highly intelligent and talented person can be lost in depression and self-abuse.

Though her actions are reprehensible, the final act of exposing the truth to the world may have a greater impact on Janet and anyone who faces the emotional and physical trauma caused by depression and addiction.

For this reason, I ask that the court grant a reconciliation between Ms. Devlin and Janet on the condition that any further acts of abuse, humiliation, or shame be dealt with quickly and severely. The Prosecution and Defense rest…so that we may listen to the album again. 

Review – Album:  Confessional, Book:  My Confessional

Release: 5 June 2020 Album:  Insomnia Music, Book by Omnibus Press 

Album Category:  Pop, some Gaelic influences

The raw truth of Janet Devlin’s life is disturbing; however, the album, Confessional, that lyrically exposes her internal battle is not a collection of morose songs. The listener might not realize that some songs deal with dark subjects of depression, self-harm, and addiction. This makes the album more than just a confessional, but a highly crafted artistic canvas of emotion and music.

The album begins with an anthem that announces the scope and purpose of the music collection. With one exception, the tracks lyrically stay true to the theme of the anthem. The exception is Big Wide World that is almost a giddy emotional outburst from the rest of the album. Musically, songs such as Cinema Screen, Away With The Fairies, and Holy Water, have an upbeat feel, while other songs carry a softer and/or somber tone. This gives the album a balanced feel that combats the serious, and sometimes disturbing, lyrics of many of the songs. 

Book Category:  Autobiography  [Book Format: Hardcover]

The twelve chapters of the book share the title and order of the songs on the album; however, this is not a “why-I-wrote-this-song” book. Each chapter seems to loosely relate to the album but not in a way that is overt. Ms. Devlin uses prose to tell the story of her life in the book and uses lyrical poetry and music on the album to give an emotional feel to that story. 

The blending of the album and book creates a deep connection to the hidden life of someone betrayed and shredded by a twisted reflection of herself. The book doesn’t allow the reader to be a casual participant. The experiences of depression, cutting, anorexia, isolation all are exposed, but not as the evil afflictions that we think of them. Ms. Devlin becomes the Siren that takes the reader into dangerous waters of mental oddities and self-destruction and gives us a glimpse of how our brains can twist self-harm into a release from self-loathing.

There is no clear explanation for the cause of the type of behavior that Ms. Devlin has lived with since she was a child; however, it is not just a reaction to external trauma, nor an issue of a ‘defective’ brain. What Ms. Devlin accomplishes with the blending of the album and book is an inside view of how a highly intelligent person can be mired in a world of self-loathing and addiction…and perhaps a map of how to get out of that world.   

BOOK:
Informative  ★★★★★
Relevancy  ★★★★★
Readability  ★★★★★
Visuals  ★★★☆☆

12 Days in 1968

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by in 1968, Aging, Arts, Crime, Crisis Management, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Panama, Photography, Politics, Pride, Print Media, Public Image, Public Relations, racism, Relationships, Religion, Respect, Science, Space, Technology, The Tipping Point, Traditional Media, Universities, US History, Women

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 1968 – Student injured in France in clash with police

1968. Fifty years ago our country was in chaos. Only five years had passed since President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. The man who became President, Lyndon B. Johnson, had accomplished amazing milestones in civil rights, protections for the elderly (Medicare and Medicaid) and had expanded programs in public broadcasting and the arts, but the country was torn apart by the war in Vietnam, and he had increased the number of U.S. troops in the war to over half a million.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was still recovering from the  fire in January of the previous year that killed three astronauts as they sat helplessly in the command module on the launch pad, and the Apollo program had yet to launch a manned mission with only two years left to honor President Kennedy’s goal.

At the start of the year, everything in the world seemed to be collapsing. The year would test our society’s threshold of endurance. These are twelve days that defined 1968. (Source:  Wikipedia – 1968)

Captured crew of the USS Pueblo giving the finger to North Korea

  • January 23
    • North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, creating an international incident that remained in the news for most of 1968. North Korea claimed the ship was spying on their country and violated its territorial waters. Its mission was to observe and gather intelligence and at the time of capture, the crew attempted to destroy classified information on the Pueblo, but only succeeded in destroying a small amount of the documents and equipment. One crewmember was killed by North Korean fire in the attempt to capture the boat. The crew was tortured and starved during the eleven months of imprisonment. They were released just before Christmas 1968. The USS Pueblo is still held in North Korea and is still a commissioned ship of the United States Navy.
  • February 13
    • Civil rights disturbances occur at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This would be one of many protests, sit-ins, and riots, in the United States, England, France, Germany, and other countries over civil rights, the Vietnam war, and other social issues. Many of those involved in the year of civil disobedience would be injured or killed in clashes with law enforcement.
    • The Florida Education Association (FEA) initiates a mass resignation of teachers to protest state funding of education. This is, in effect, the first statewide teachers’ strike in the United States.
    • NET televises the very first episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
    •  
  • March 16
    • Vietnam War – My Lai Massacre: American troops kill scores of civilians. The story will first become public in November 1969 and will help undermine public support for the U.S. efforts in Vietnam.
    • President Lyndon B. Johnson, the incumbent, narrowly won the first Democratic primary to a minor candidate on March 11, and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy entered the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. President Johnson would end his campaign two weeks after Kennedy makes his announcement.
    •  
  • April 4
    • Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt in major American cities, lasting for several days afterward.
    • A shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland police results in several arrests and deaths, including 16-year-old Panther Bobby Hutton.
    • A double explosion in downtown Richmond, Indiana kills 41 and injures 150.
  • May 17
    • The Catonsville Nine enter the Selective Service offices in Catonsville, Maryland, take dozens of selective service draft records, and burn them with napalm as a protest against the Vietnam War.
    •  
  • June 5
    • U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan Sirhan is arrested. Kennedy dies from his injuries the next day.

Pope Paul VI: The man who brought the Church into couple’s beds

  •  July 25
  • August 20
    • The Prague Spring of political liberalization ends, as 750,000 Warsaw Pact troops, 6,500 tanks, and 800 planes invade Czechoslovakia. It is dated as the biggest operation in Europe since WWII ended.
  • September 6
  • October 11
    • Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission (Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham). Mission goals include the first live television broadcast from orbit and testing the lunar module docking maneuver. The United States is back in space for the first time since the Apollo 1 disaster.
    • In Panama, a military coup d’état, led by Col. Boris Martinez and Col. Omar Torrijos, overthrows the democratically elected (but highly controversial) government of President Arnulfo Arias. Within a year, Torrijos ousts Martinez and takes charge as de facto Head of Government in Panama.
  •  
  • November 5

  • View of Earth from Apollo 8 as it orbited the Moon

  • December 24
    • Apollo program: U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A. Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole. Anders photographs Earthrise.

Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by in About Reno, Arts, Film, Generational, Religion, review, Science Fiction, Space

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The late Carrie Fisher (1956-2016)
The Last Jedi honors the memory of our Star Wars Princess

Star Wars:  The Last Jedi doesn’t disappoint, nor does it shock hardcore Star Wars fans. The big question of this episode is “Who are Rey’s parents?” The film answers the question; however, the answer is anticlimactic when we discover that her parents are nobodies that sold Rey for drinking money. This does not mean that this is the final answer to the question, but Rey does seem to accept that as fact when Kylo Ren tells her.

As one may expect, the film is packed with action scenes, and the Rebels are in constant peril. By the end, Luke Skywalker is dead, no one in the galaxy responds to the Rebel’s call for help, the Rebels are decimated, and the remains of the entire Rebel army can fit on the Millennium Falcon.

On the plus side, everyone has hope. Run credits.

The biggest surprise was the significant role the late Carrie Fisher character plays in the film. Despite the actor’s unexpected death one year ago, her character is still alive when the credits roll. It was reported that she had finished all her scenes before her death, but that could have been a few cameo scenes, as was the case in The Force Awakens. In this episode, Fisher’s character does have a near death experience, but she recovers and remains central to the plot.

Mark Hamill’s character was only teased in the last episode, (Star Wars:  The Force Awakens,) but in The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker’s hermit lifestyle is explained. Skywalker’s failure to train Kylo Ren has caused him to reject the Jedi religion, and he makes it clear he is just waiting for his death.

However, Skywalker is convinced to play a significant role in saving the few remaining Rebels, and he does so by deceiving Kylo Ren into a fight with a projected image of himself, that buys enough time for the to escape the First Order.

In the end, Skywalker gets his wish to die a Jedi death like Obi Wan Kenobi as his body mystically disappears as he sits on a rock far away from the battle.

Rey and Kylo Ren develop a relationship based on each trying to pull the other to their side of the Force. Rey has a temporary victory when Kylo Ren saves her by killing the Supreme Leader, Snoke, but then Kylo Ren claims himself to be the Supreme Leader and tries to convince Rey to join him. She declines in a forceful way.

The newer characters, Finn and Poe Dameron continue their solid performances from the The Force Awakens and spend much of this film failing to save the Rebels from being destroyed. In retrospect, one might wonder that with friends like Finn and Poe, who needs an evil enemy with massive firepower?

Chewbacca, Yoda, C-3PO, and R2-D2 all have supporting roles in this episode, but the constant reappearing presence is the BB-8 robot that saves Finn and Poe’s butts on a regular basis. All five of these characters (Chewbacca, Yoda, C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8,) along with the Porgs (a new cute and cuddly Star Wars species that has merchandising written all over them,) provide the comic relief throughout the film.

In the end, this was a worthy addition to the Star Wars series, and should satisfy even the most hardcore fan. Nothing in the film would be a galaxy-quaking revelation, but The Last Jedi effectively continues the saga of a galaxy far, far away.

Redacted Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in Arts, Film, Recreation, review, Science Fiction, Space

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As many people are intelligent and avoid the opening weekend of a major motion picture release, they may not want to read a review filled with spoilers. To that end, here is a redacted review of Star Wars:  The Last Jedi. I will offer the unredacted version on 22 December.

The late Carrie Fisher (1956-2016)
The Last Jedi honors the memory of our Star Wars Princess

Star Wars is Back!

Star Wars:  The Last Jedi doesn’t disappoint, nor does it shock hardcore Star Wars fans. The big question of this episode is “▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪?” The film ▪▪▪▪ the question; however, the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ when we discover that ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ that  ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ for ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪. This does not mean that ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ to the question, but ▪▪▪▪ does seem to accept that as fact when ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪.

As one may expect, the film is packed ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪, and the Rebels are ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪. By the end, ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ is dead, no one in the galaxy responds to the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪, the Rebels ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪, and the remains of the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ can fit on the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪.

On the plus side, everyone has ▪▪▪▪. Run credits.

The biggest surprise was the significant role ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ character plays in the film. Despite the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪, ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ is still alive when the credits roll. It was reported that ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ scenes ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ death, but that could have been a few ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪, as was the case in ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪. In this episode, ▪▪▪▪ does have a near death experience, but ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪and remains central to the plot.

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ character was only teased ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ but in The Last Jedi, ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ lifestyle is explained. ▪▪▪▪ to train ▪▪▪▪ has caused him to reject the ▪▪▪▪, and he makes it clear he is just waiting for his ▪▪▪▪.

However, ▪▪▪▪ is convinced to play a significant role in saving the few remaining ▪▪▪▪, and he does so by deceiving ▪▪▪▪ into a fight with ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪, that buys enough time for the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ to ▪▪▪▪ the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪.

In the end, ▪▪▪▪ gets his wish to die a ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ like ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ as his body mystically ▪▪▪▪ as he sits on a rock far away from the battle.

▪▪▪▪ and ▪▪▪▪ develop a relationship based on each trying to ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ to their ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪. ▪▪▪▪ has a temporary victory when ▪▪▪▪ saves ▪▪▪▪ by killing the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪, ▪▪▪▪, but then ▪▪▪▪ claims himself to be the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ and tries to convince ▪▪▪▪ to join him. ▪▪▪▪ in a forceful way.

The newer characters, ▪▪▪▪ and ▪▪▪▪ continue their solid performances from the ▪▪▪▪ and spend much of this film ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ the ▪▪▪▪ from being destroyed. In retrospect, one might wonder that with friends like ▪▪▪▪ and ▪▪▪▪, who needs an evil enemy with massive firepower?

▪▪▪▪, ▪▪▪▪, ▪▪▪▪, and ▪▪▪▪ all have supporting roles in this episode, but the constant reappearing presence is the ▪▪▪▪ that saves ▪▪▪▪ and ▪▪▪▪ butts on a regular basis. All five of these characters (▪▪▪▪, ▪▪▪▪, ▪▪▪▪, ▪▪▪▪, and ▪▪▪▪,) along with the ▪▪▪▪ (a new cute and cuddly Star Wars species that has merchandising written all over them,) provide the ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪throughout the film.

In the end, this was a worthy addition to the Star Wars series, and should satisfy even the most hardcore fan. Nothing in the film would be a galaxy-quaking revelation, but The Last Jedi effectively continues the saga of a galaxy far, far away.